


subliminal

by orphan_account



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, Set A Few Years Post Pennywise, Teenage Losers Club (IT)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 09:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20673386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It never really goes away, Richie thinks.





	subliminal

It never really goes away, Richie thinks.

He supposes it’s the emotional trauma that came with it. With battling It, that is. In some weird way his feelings for Eddie and his constant fear of Pennywise coming back has intertwined. Morphed into a single entity that has Richie resorting to repression every single time. Clowns weren’t his biggest fear.

He could name a hundred fears of his, and they weren’t one of them.

It’s bad timing, the way he realized he’d liked Eddie during the whole time they had the dilemma with Pennywise. If he’d realized his feelings a little later or a little sooner, maybe things would be different. Not better, not easier. Just different. But instead, he’s got realization of feelings and emotional trauma come in a one plus one package. Twice the drama, twice the pain. 

Sometimes he wishes he’d never even realized it in the first place.

Most of it is subliminal, this thing with them.

Which is weird, considering that everything about Eddie screams explicit. His crumpled face at the thought of any wound, his foul tongue, his jumpy gait—all these the rest of the world can notice. What they don’t, however, are the opposite of these things. Richie notices it: the way his twitchy gaze zeroes every time Richie walks in, the way the corner of his lips soften even with his sharp words, the way his anal hands don’t even hesitate to touch. He supposes the rest of the losers must’ve noticed it at some point but in a way, these are things Richie only knows. They don’t know it like he does. So he swallows up these facts, locks it deep beneath for the whole Derry to forget.

Not even this he’d allow this fucking town to take from him.

“Thought I saw you through the glass doors,” Eddie says now, his clean sneakers squeaking as it kisses the arcade tiles. “What are you still doing out? It’s like 8:00PM.”

Richie glances at him, then immediately back to the game. They’re teenagers and Derry curfews are essentially ineffective to them but Richie thinks the wariness never really goes away. He says, “I could say the same to you, Eds.”

“Prescriptions,” Eddie says, his arms raising for Richie to see. “Medical supplies. Had to pick them up for my mom.”

Richie’s character gets punched in the face. Then kicked. Then he’s being wiped to the floor. His focus has long been broken, and it fucking sucks. So he says, “Do those include condoms? Your mom and I ran out last night after five long rounds—”

“Shut up, Richie.”

Richie laughs, looking at Eddie. The amber screen glows on his face, spotlights his twitching mouth. Richie dies on screen. The announcement echoes in the half-empty arcade. “Fucking loser,” Eddie snorts, then he looks at his watch. He opens his mouth.

Richie cuts him off before he can even start. 

“I have one more coin,” he blurts out. “And there are two joysticks. I mean, it’d be a waste not to use it, so.”

Eddie stares at him.

And then it comes back, rising up his chest. The white, hot shame he’d felt in the same arcade, the last time he’d uttered the same words. Four summers later, and still Richie can’t forget. He still feels it crawl up the recesses of his mind sometimes. So his brain catches up with his mouth, does what he does best, “It’s my way of compromise. You know, since your mom and I will be going at it again tonight and you probably won’t be able to sleep again with the way I’ll have her screaming—”

“Shut up Richie,” Eddie says, but he’s already hip-checking Richie to move aside. Richie breathes an inaudible sigh of relief. “I’ll eat you up in this fucking game.”

Their fingers touch. Linger, then away. “Oh it’s fucking on, Eds.”

In a way, it began with Richie’s hold on Eddie’s ankle and the way he didn’t even try to pull away from it. His hands are big, Eddie’s ankle small. It fits, circles the skin perfectly and Eddie didn’t even shy away from the touch. He just dug his socked toes into Richie’s cheekbone further. 

It has existed way before that but this was where it actually started. Richie had felt it before: the fish-hook gut in his chest whenever Eddie even so much as smiles at his jokes, the concentrated warmth where they touch, the hyperawareness his mind adopts at Eddie’s every action. But it had never been this glaringly obvious before, the wound beginning to gape in Richie’s chest that summer. Maybe it was the way the sun spilled from the ceiling cracks to Eddie’s mouth, or maybe it was his mind’s way of overpowering the looming truth of them having to face Pennywise soon.

Or—maybe—it’s been long overdue, and Richie’s time was up.

When he looked at Eddie, everything was clearer than his damned coke-bottle glasses allowed him to see. He had half the mind to joke with a shaky grin: “If you wanted to sleep with me, Eds, then you should’ve said so.”

At that time, Richie falls. To the ground, and for the very same boy who pushes him off the hammock. 

A few years later, the clubhouse is essentially barren although the hammock stays. 

But they outgrow it, obviously. The ten-cent shower caps, the squeaking bikes, the Quarry, the weekly Saturday meetings (or Sundays when Mike has farm work to do during Saturdays). Beverly moves out, the rest of the Losers move on. They still meet up sometimes in groups of twos or threes. In sixes, rarely, but somehow it’s the type of friendship that works. Science says you can never really cut bonds with people you’ve killed psychotic clowns with.

Eddie joins Richie at the back of the bleachers sometimes. 

It’s musty and dim. Perpetually semi-wet grass pools into Eddie’s ankles and cobwebs twirl in Richie’s hair. But for some reason, they stay there anyway. The rendezvous point used to be at the projection room but since an 8thgrader got caught smoking there, it had been locked from the students. Richie would cut classes he feels like skipping, Eddie would skip gym when he deems the activities too much for him. 

He’d always tell Richie he’d rather suffocate in grass than have an asthma attack in Gym in the presence of the whole class.

“What is it this time?” Richie asks, leaning against a scaffold pole.

“Fifty-meter dash,” Eddie snorts. “No _way _in hell would I be running again after that mess from last month.”

Richie chuckles. “Aw, what would your mom say when she finds out you skipped class again?”

“She’d rather see me fail gym than find out I had an asthma attack,” Eddie says drily.

“And here I thought you’d outgrow your inhaler,” Richie says, then eyes Eddie’s hips with a teasing grin, “_Or _your fanny packs.” 

“What’s wrong with my fanny packs?” Eddie demands, all up in Richie’s face.

“Nothing, nothing. They’re,” he swallows through his own grin, wavers at the proximity. Continues a bit too late, “cute.”

Eddie almost trips trying to put a distance between them.

His wallet falls out, and Richie instinctively picks it up for him. Its contents gape open, neatly-folded bills and coins tucked in the pockets. On the clear photo case sits a weathered photo of the seven of them grinning at the camera.

“Huh,” Richie says.

Eddie hastily takes it from him. “What, this your first time seeing it?”

“No, no. Just…” Richie blinks, “I haven’t seen my copy of that picture in years.”

Eddie tucks the wallet back into his jeans pocket. “It’s the only picture all seven of us are complete in,” he says. “It’s the only picture any of us had together, actually. The photobooth fees are hella expensive.”

“When we were pooling up money for the fee, I remember Stan had the biggest bill,” Richie grins. “He asked us for change but we basically bullied him into using up all the money for the picture.”

“He ended up paying the most, yeah,” Eddie smiles. “We should do that again.”

“What, con money off Stan again?" 

Eddie laughs. “I meant we should take another picture at that photobooth again.”

“With the rest of the guys?” Richie says. “Yeah, sure. It’d be hard getting all of us together again, though. Especially since Stan’s advanced placement class schedules are, like, in a different timeline than ours.”

“All six of us.” Eddie’s voice is small, and he looks down, shrugs, “Or, I don’t know. It could be the two of us, if you want.”

Richie’s thoughts flatline. His mouth flounders stupidly, looking for the rights words to say other than _what the fuck._

Eddie’s facial expression closes. He says, “Haha, I’m kidding. I can do it myself. I just wanted to try the photobooth again. I can rack up the money myself—”

“Sure.”

Eddie’s mouth snaps shut. 

“Yeah, sure, why not,” Richie babbles, dousing the excitement coursing up his veins. Eddie’s blinking up at him unbelievingly with eyes that makes Richie want to— “Yeah. Sure, okay. Let’s do it.”

Richie wonders if things would be easier if he’d liked a girl instead.

Girls are pretty. Soft, easy to love, in touch with their emotions. Strong. If Richie had liked a girl, he’d be able to go on dates with her. Take her to the arcade, hold her hands, get matching socks. Things would easily fall into place.

This thing with Eddie is everything but _easy_.

But then Richie sees Eddie smile, pictures the carving on the kissing bridge, remembers the way Eddie fucking fought alongside him when they battled Pennywise. He remembers he’d liked his best friend for a reason, and it encompassed more than genders and what Henry fucking Bowers or Pennywise or the society taunted him for.

Richie never really liked following the rules anyway.

It takes them quite a while but they finally get to take that picture.

Eddie’s wearing bright red, Richie’s wearing too green florals. The colors are a mess under the fluorescent lights. Everything is saturated and Richie feels too good. Too warm, too electric. They cut the pictures into six grids after. Three for Eddie, two for Richie.

Richie puts both in his wallet. The last box from the grid he tucks beneath his closet.

Their first kiss is something he wants to keep for himself.

**Author's Note:**

> not particularly proud of this but im very proud of my boys!!!! richie especially for being so so brave about the whole thing in the movie. thank u for fighting for our rights andy


End file.
